EBT November 2010 - Sigma Phi Epsilon

Dedicated to the
Men & Women of
the Sigma Phi
Epsilon Missouri
Gamma Chapter
and Named in
Memory of Our
Enthusiastic
Brother Wilbur
“Beartracks”
Burton and his
wife Daisy
NOV 2010
Mailbag
Rock Drag
2010
Parking Lot is
done!!
Philanthropy
Scholarship
Evaluations
Dec. 4th
Super Pledge
Intramurals
BEARTRACKS
In my garage there are two laminated reproductions of the composits from the years
1956 and 1998-99. No particular reason for the years selected . . the frames of those
two particular composits were damaged and I was experimenting with scanning and
laminating as a better method of archiving.
Those faces and names from 1956 greet me each time I’m working on a project.
This group of Sig Eps were between the WWII era and the modern college experience.
They lived in a rented house, 401 E. 7th Street, which is now a parking lot for Rolla
High School. The overflow from the house lived accross the street in Old Lantern Hill
and ate at the house. All walked a good distance across town to campus. This was the
fraternity that my pledge class of 24 joined though we are not pictured.
As I look at the 49 faces (Including Flash), I see eager young men, ready to start out
in life. Since that composite was made, 13 of the faces have deceased, (including
Flash) and 13 of the 36 remaining have pledged financially to the new house. That is a
remarkable percentage (the ‘98-’99 is 6/75) and one which every class should emulate.
These men experienced value in their fraternity experience and now feel the need to
return value. I sure do like those faces from 1956 that portray men who contributed
value to my life also.
Also in this issue you will find photos of the “Rock Drag” and the chapter’s work with
the ALS Foundation. I sometimes hear the comment that the fraternity isn’t the same.
Well no, it’s never going to be “the same” for any two people but take a
close look
at those faces during those events. Those faces are the same as for you
and me as they were for every generation of Sig Eps . . young men having fun in their fraternity experience.
The chapter hosted a fine Parent-Faculty dinner at the Episcopal
church and there awarded $1500 in three Balanced Man scholarships.
HFF
Mike Kearney, ‘61
From the Mail Bag
Damn, looking at the picture of Swank, Little Hawk and Whisper, I had a 50
year flashback............ a lowly pledge, cleaning up on Sat Morning of party
weekend- carrying couches outside which might have one or more of these
gentlemen passed out on them.
Great to see the picture and if I close one eye, they pretty much look the same
thanks
Bill Logel
I
am in my second year of a Mechanical Engineering PhD program at UCLA. I recently took my written preliminary exams and passed. (11 students passed out of 15 total
students taking the exam.) I am researching combustion of fuels under the influence of
acoustics. The work is fun, and perhaps the energy and aerospace industries will be on
the upswing when I am looking for a job about 2 years from now.
I would also like to see my name on the list of pledges for the new house. For many
moons, this has been on my mind, but it will be several more months until I can make a
decision about this.
Thank you for everything you do for our brothers.
All pet owners will understand this.
Jeff Wegener
This is a video of the actor Jimmy Stewart reading a poem he wrote about his dog Beau.
I saw an interview at his home once and his dogs were present and he was truthful Beau
did not listen to him! You will notice both Jimmy Stewart and Johnny Carson wiping away
tears here. I always loved Jimmy Stewart he seemed such a nice man and by all accounts he
was. They say his two greatest loves were his beautiful wife Gloria and his dogs.
http://www.theospark.net/2010/02/video-johnny-carson-jimmy-stewart-beau.html
T
Dick Mantler
he reason for the Yahoo is that we got the 10/20/10 PET/CT and CT scan report from Dr.
Mundis this Wednesday and it says “No evidence of residual nodal enlargement of nodal
uptake is seen.” What this means is that the five other “areas of concern” have been wiped out.
Plus no new areas have appeared. Good news X 2!
So the procedure will two more sessions of 21 day interval chemo on 11/11 and 12/8 then I
should be good to go. The word I’m hearing is that it takes about three months for your body
to get back to feeling normal. That may include a new head of hair. Back to hair cuts and shaving! “Good to go” also means to us that we will be scheduling a trip to see the kids in California over Christmas and the trip to New Zealand and Australia in late February with our bridge
group is more sure than ever.
J. R. Wyatt
on the job site
Parking lot Complete!!
Siding still on . .
on the job site
Siding material off!!
Philanthropy
On September 25 , 2010, something amazing happened. Hundreds of citizens from the small college town of Rolla,
th
Missouri pulled on their shoes and team T-shirts and set forth to walk in honor of those stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease, to walk in place of those who could no more. Five kilometers, eight teams, and two line dances later, The Walk
to Defeat ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) had risen over $11,000.
And the brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon- Missouri Gamma
were there every step of the way.
MO Gamma’s philanthropy chair, Brother Emitt Witt,
met the ALS Foundation’s local board of directors early in
the summer of 2010. The board’s leader, Kathy Eudaly,
came to SigEp with a manpower problem. The annual Walk
requires community volunteers to work during the all day
event. Such tasks that need to be completed are cooking
food for several hundred Walk participants, staffing registration/advocacy/water tables, set up, tear down, and clean up.
More often than not, the Walk has met difficulty in obtaining
enough volunteers from the community of Rolla. So when
Kathy came forward desperately seeking maybe a few
SigEps to assist the event, Brother Witt proudly claimed that
he would bring far more than “a few SigEps” and that Sigma
Phi Epsilon would staff the entire event.
The ALS local
board of directors
was thrilled. Having
instantly solved their
once reoccurring
problem, Sigma Phi
Epsilon allowed the board to focus their attention on
much more important tasks, such as collecting donations from local business and encouraging citizens to
build walking teams for the event. Throughout the rest
of the summer and leading up to the Walk, Brother Witt continued to stay in close communication with the board and
put forth full effort into assisting planning.
At 7:30am on a Saturday, thirty plus members of Sigma Phi Epsilon- Missouri Gamma arrived at Rolla Lions
Club Park in full force to complete their assigned duties. The cooking crew began lighting coals; the set up crew
marked the entire 5k route with signs paying tribute to those stricken with ALS; the various table crews organized
their work areas. SigEps were also around Rolla completing other duties including delivering food to the Walk and
making sure citizens of Rolla were aware of the Walk’s new location.
Philanthropy
Throughout the day, the community of Rolla was exposed to the hardworking, cheerful men of Sigma Phi
Epsilon. The set up crew performed admirably, completing tasks that had taken three hours in only 40 minutes.
The cooking crew happily cooked for nearly five hours, preparing food for the participants of the Walk. Many
of the participants enjoyed conversations with the college boys out of Missouri Gamma throughout the day.
And when the event’s DJ played “Cupid Shuffle” over the sound system, the fun loving men of Sigma Phi Epsilon
were there to strike up a line dance in which everyone participated.
At the end of the day, Brother Witt had the chance
to meet with the entire board. Kathy Eudaly was nearly in
tears of happiness at the success of the Walk. The rest of
board was equally appreciative of the hard work donated by
Sigma Phi Epsilon. Kathy happily claimed the Walk’s success was directly based off of the volunteer work provided
by SigEp and the fun, cheerful atmosphere that the college
boys provided. The Regional Director out of St. Louis, MO
also positively commented on the work that SigEp provided
to the ALS Foundation.
The brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon look back on September 25th, 2010 as a great day of service to the wonderful
community of Rolla. Each and every one of the men who
volunteered at the Walk knows that his service will directly
affect someone’s life whether through research, patient
care, or awareness raised at such events.
Sigma Phi Epsilon- Missouri Gamma is slated to receive an award for “outstanding service” to the ALS
Foundation on December 5th, 2010 in St. Louis, MO.
the 2010 rock drag
First you get’s you’se a ROCK !!
Then you paints it up real pretty.
Then older and wiser hands hooks up
the ropes . .
You waves goodbye to yer mother . .
You gets a strategy discussion . .
Then you starts to drag . .
There are few traditions on Rolla’s campus that are older than the Sigma Phi Epsilon Rock Drag.
Every year during homecoming week, the Sig Ep rock is fought over, flipped, and finally drug
around town onto other fraternal lawns.
This year was no different, despite the new living arrangements while the fraternity house
is being remodeled. The freshman did their duty and guarded the rock against the Phi Kapps as
so many have before them. After about 15 minutes of shoving, wrestling, and a few high impact
tackles, the Sig Ep freshman finally relented and let the outnumbered Phi Kapps try to flip the
rock. Like most other years, this took quite some time, but was ultimately successful with a little
help from our freshman.
After two flips, everyone went back and waited until the Phi Kapps would strike again with
some homemade napalm. As always, the blaze allowed for some fun jokes and fraternal bonding.
More than a few jokes were at our Sig Ep freshman for not putting the rock out quick enough.
Now that we don’t live catty corner to the Phi Kapps,
there was a lot of catching up to do. After two good
fires, the night was over, and everyone went home
to rest up for the big night ahead of them.
The next night the rock was tied up and
ready to go. The freshman managed to pull the rock
out of the yard themselves without any assistance
from older members. Thanks to some stellar recruiting, the thirty man pledge class didn’t seem to have
much trouble at all moving the rock towards the Phi
Kapps.
As always, they were ready for us and put a stop to us fairly quickly. After a little shoving
and a little bit of fighting, they joined us in our eternal quest to ruin the Pike’s lawn. Once again,
we were met with resistance and were stopped fairly early. Since it was the Pikes, we through a
few more jabs and shoved a lot harder, but after a few minutes we moved on to the Teke house.
The combined man power of three of the largest fraternities on campus gave the Tekes no
chance to defend their lawn. They were easily pushed out of the way and offered little resistance
for the mob of over one hundred students. Putting a
deep rut into the Teke lawn gave the group even more
energy, and the rock sped off towards Sig Nu. As in
many previous years, Sig Nu wasn’t ready, and as a
result had a good chunk of lawn removed for them.
They took it with good humor and wanted to help ruin
someone else’s lawn, so we sped off towards Sig Chi.
Tragically, the “men” of Sig Chi decided that
instead of fighting us to prevent our lawn service form
striking them, they blockaded the yard with cars. This
led to a lot of jeering, and outright hostility from the
mob, as many rightfully felt that they had cheated.
After threatening to upturn some cars and get on the
lawn anyways, the mob decided to press on and head
for Lambda Chi. Unfortunately, this is where the saga ended. The cops busted us up before we
could reach Lambda Chi, but this was still one of the longer Rock Drags thanks in large part to the
freshman working their butts off and making great time. It was another great night that none of
us will forget anytime soon.
T
hen you drags it
from fraternity house
to fraternity house
asking for some liquid refreshment and
rock dragging volunteers.
Too many supervisors.
Finally . . the good men in blue
arrive and ‘splains it better to the
chapter president . .
The kind officer did not want the
Rock for hisself so we drags it
back home.
“Our
Capital Campaign
needs your participation!! Please
recall what SigEp
meant to you during
your Rolla days”
Super House Donation
We are now just over
$1,000,000 in pledged donations . . some large some
small.
The attached letter from
Brother Scott and his wife
Mary Kathryn Moeller,
exemplify the former.
See 2 Corinthians 8:1-5
From left to right; Emitt Witt, Xavier Naeger,
Adam Dillon, Dustin Schroer.
They are delivering food to a local senior citizen
living community.
intramurals
Sigma Phi Epsilon has had a
strong showing in the Intramural
Association’s Fall 2010 season.
Currently ranked 4th, SigEps are
competing in flag football, and
will start volleyball this week. The
first points officially tallied this
season were for golf, where SigEp
took first place, and Pegis followed
strong with third. The softball season left us scratching our heads when we didn’t break into the playoffs; Sigep
took eighth. Ultimate Frisbee was a hard fought effort by the whole house, leaving us with a tie for seventh
place. The swimmers took fourth place overall. The most recent event to be scored was the Billiards tournament
with singles and doubles play. SigEp took sixth overall. Badminton and washers will round out tournament play
for this semester.
Philanthropy
November 11
Cont.
was the date of the Christ
Episcopal Church’s annual Men’s Dinner. This
year there were twenty men from Sigma Phi
Epsilon in attendance, not as patrons, but as
waiters. They had volunteered their evening to
serve local donors a very classy three course
meal and drinks. This year the dinner was a
huge success, with over 300 people from the
community in attendance. This success was
due largely to the men from the church, but
would not have been possible without the
members of Sigma Phi Epsilon who made up
the majority of the wait staff. Both members
of the community and those running the event
were very pleased with the work done by the
Sig Eps, thanking them at every station and
table. This event was an opportunity for the
Brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon to give back to
the church, which has become the chapter’s
weekly meeting location while they are displaced from 801 N. Park St. due to the renovations. The evening was classy and enjoyable for the brothers. The men of
MO Gamma are already marking next year’s date on their calendars after such a great experience.
th